


On the Phone

by anenigmaticsmile



Series: Straight Through Me Universe [3]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2017-08-04
Packaged: 2018-12-10 21:35:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11700342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anenigmaticsmile/pseuds/anenigmaticsmile
Summary: Kai's been having terrible nightmares.  Luckily his boyfriend's only a phone call away.





	On the Phone

Kai holds his phone to his ear, wrapping Kongju’s long fur around his free hand as he listens to Baekhyun babble in his softest, sleepiest, you-woke-me-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night voice. He slowly stops trembling, the dual action of his dog’s warm presence next to him and his boyfriend’s voice in his ear easing him out of his panic. 

Once his voice finds its way back, he rasps his way into Baekhyun’s sleepy monologue. “Thanks for picking up,” he says, and he means it. 

He can hear Baekhyun’s sleepy hum as he smiles on the other end. “Yeah. Feel better?”

“Yeah,” and it isn’t a lie, because he’s stopped shaking, but he still can’t think of stopping the call. “Can we stay on the line until I fall asleep, though?”

Baekhyun sleepily laughs and agrees. It’s not the first time they’ve done this, and it probably won’t be the last. Kai has nightmares; Baekhyun has bad days. Both are easily helped with a simple phone call, the sound of the other’s voice, the rhythmic breathing as they each fall asleep. Sometimes they skip the nightmares, late-night panic attacks, and just stay the night together. Not frequently, but sometimes.

Kai always falls asleep last. There’s comfort to him to hear the way Baekhyun’s sleepy babble slowly fades into half-whispered syllables, then just random hums that give way to soft breathing. Especially since his nightmares have changed.

For months they had been simple, normal. Stage fright, performing a routine that he’d never learned. Learning about a class he’d never been to only during exam week. Sometimes, it was just a normal day, walking down past a park and suddenly everything would go dark and he’d be running away from an unseen monster. Normal things.

But the past few weeks had been different. The nightmares had started simply enough, morphed versions of the day they’d all gotten the news about the plane crash. He’d go to Baekhyun’s apartment to check on him, and everything would be fine, but then he’d be in the hospital, shaking as he sat next to Baekhyun, held his hand, prayed. Listened to doctors telling him things he didn’t want to hear from the other side of a glass wall. Hearing that his boyfriend might never wake up. Hearing that his boyfriend was as good as dead.

And then he watched the day unfold in Baekhyun’s apartment, unable to interact, unable to do anything but watch. Kai saw himself feeding Baekhyun, making quiet promises and leaving. Baekhyun’s phone ringing. Baekhyun answering it and the what little life was in his eyes drain out. Watched Baekhyun go – and the dream always stopped right there. Baekhyun walking out of the room, and never coming back.

Even his own mind was never cruel enough to make him watch Baekhyun die.

 

It’s through late night phone calls that Kai gets through the next several weeks, always waking up in cold sweats and tight muscles, calming against the breathing of his boyfriend, the assurance that Baekhyun is still there, still alive.

Where the nights are terrifying, the days are calm and peaceful. It’s the middle of summer, and Baekhyun’s working an internship six days a week and Kai’s dancing seven, but they spend as much time as possible with each other, in the early mornings before Baekhyun goes to work and after Kai’s taken Kongju out for a morning run; in the evenings when they’re both exhausted and just sink into the couch to mindlessly eat dinner and watch tv.

It’s during one of these late evenings – Kongju sent to her crate to keep her from jumping on Baekhyun, Kai icing down his ankles, and both of them eating more pasta than they probably should – that Baekhyun makes an offhand comment about just crashing there, some half-hearted comment about how small and dark and dirty his apartment is in comparison.

“Sorry,” Kai responds, “I mean, you can, but I have to leave in half an hour. I won’t be here, the studio’s got that thing tomorrow morning, remember?”

“Oh, yeah, it’s fine, I’ll just – my apartment’s fine.”

Kai frowns, not satisfied. Crashing at each other’s places is usually reserved for very bad days. “Baekhyun, if you’re having a bad day or something, you’re welcome to stay here with Kongju. She’s really good company in bed. And we can talk on the phone – I don’t care.”

“No, no, I’m fine!” Baekhyun insists, and elaborates at Kai’s patient stare. “I just thought that maybe, your nightmares, maybe they wouldn’t be so bad if I was right there.”

And that’s probably the most thoughtful thing Kai’s heard all week, but there’s still that little twist of his gut at making Baekhyun – Baekhyun, who has so many problems of his own – worry. “Thanks. Are you sure…?”

“I’m great. Promise.”

And they both are great, that night, Baekhyun in his own bed in his own apartment, Kai passed out in the back of a van somewhere, thanks to a couple of sleeping pills. The next day goes well, too, and Kai finds himself falling face-first into his bed, finally home, body aching sore and doesn’t even think about putting his phone somewhere he can access it easily, because he’s so tired.

He thinks that might have been a mistake, when he’s trying to find his phone and dial Baekhyun and his limbs are terror-locked and it feels a little like someone punched him in the stomach with a rocket. He gets half a second of bile in the back of his throat just as Baekhyun’s phone starts ringing before he’s vomiting all over himself, little more than bile and acid because his last meal’s been so long, but it burns his throat and his nose and he thinks he can hear Baekhyun’s sleepy “hello” turning into worried words, but he’s not sure because all he can focus on for a few minutes is not choking on his own vomit.

When his stomach finally stops rebelling against him so strongly, he can actually hear Baekhyun’s worried, “Kai? Kai, are you okay?”

Kai spits some of the sour taste out of his mouth and tries to focus in on Baekhyun’s voice. “Are you?”

“What? Yeah, I’m fine? What about you? You called me, and then you were vomiting?”

Baekhyun was fine, and that little bit of information let Kai center himself a little more. “I had another nightmare.” He paused for a moment as the smell of the vomit on him and his bed sinks in. “I should go…clean this up. Will you…?”

“Yeah, of course,” Baekhyun agrees so quickly, and Kai puts the phone on his bedside table and strips out of his ruined clothes. Baekhyun starts up a light-hearted monologue, like he usually does, like he knows helps, as Kai picks the phone back up and heads into the bathroom to wash up.

He can’t bring himself to go back into his bedroom and deal with the soiled sheets after he’s all washed, so Kai slides down the wall to sit next to the toilet, Baekhyun still chattering away from the counter. Eventually, Baekhyun grows tired and starts to trail down into his sleepy hums. Kai doesn’t mind, the cool tiles of the bathroom helping to keep him grounded, but his stomach lurches the quieter that Baekhyun gets and he’s happy that he decided to stay in the bathroom. He doesn’t vomit again, though.

Kai’s been listening to Baekhyun breathe for what feels like hours, the quiet breaths and the cool porcelain working in tandem to keep him grounded, keep him from thinking about his dream, when the call abruptly disconnects. His brain short-circuits in his exhausted state, and, instead of intelligently grabbing for his phone and redialing, his nightmare starts replaying itself behind his eyes.

It’s not very clear, everything hazed with soot-black edges. One instant, Kai is sitting on his couch, happy, calm, and the next he’s on his feet with his heart beating like crazy and then he’s standing outside of Baekhyun’s apartment, lungs seizing trying to draw air and the crash of breaking mugs echoing in his ears. And then he’s frozen, with one hand on the doorknob, unable to open the door, unable to make himself leave. He’s frozen there for what must be hours, if not days, and he can hear noises in the apartment and there’s a burning in his stomach to just open the door. Kick it down. But he can’t. He can’t do anything until everything is so, so silent that he’s not sure his own heart is even beating anymore. And then the door swings open. Kai sees three things and only three things inside of Baekhyun’s apartment. A white floor. Red blood, enough for two people. And Baekhyun, broken and splayed across the floor like a ragdoll. Then everything goes black.

Kai must fall asleep at some point that night, because he is woken in the morning by dog breath in his face.

He groans and rolls to his feet, every muscle protesting the motion after a long night on a bathroom floor, then pushes on Kongju’s head to get her to leave. With a couple of hard blinks, he follows after. Groggy from sleep, he barely notices that the sheets have been changed on his bed and that Kongju shouldn’t even be at his house. As such, he’s a little startled to find Baekhyun sitting on his couch with a bowl of cereal.

“Morning!” Baekhyun greets him, and Kai just scowls because it is way too early in the morning to deal with anything resembling cheeriness.

“What’re you doing here?” He manages to grumble out.

“I’m returning your dog.”

Right. That was a thing that needed to happen. Kai’s cool.

He’s slightly less cool when he finds out that Baekhyun has eaten the last of his cereal, though.

And Baekhyun’s still there when Kai gets home from work, playing fetch with the dog in the apartment that is decidedly too small to play fetch in.

“I bought more cereal,” he says as way of greeting, “and I’m staying here this week. If that’s cool with you.” He sees Kai’s brow furrow and jumps to cut him off. “Nightmares. Even if it doesn’t help for me to be here, at least you won’t have to sleep on the bathroom floor because you puked in your bed and didn’t have anyone to clean it up.”

Kai has to admit that it’s nice to have Baekhyun in his bed in a halfway decent state of mind. It’s even nicer when he wakes up in the morning without any dreams to speak of.

After a week of dreamless nights, they’re sitting around eating breakfast, Kai using Kongju as a footrest to keep her from jumping up to eat their food. 

“Thanks for staying, Baekhyun,” Kai says, “Maybe you should just move in.”

Baekhyun laughs around a spoonful of yogurt. “Maybe. Can I ask? What the nightmares are?” It’s something they’ve never actually discussed, because even thinking about them tends to set Kai’s muscles tight and breathing sporadic.

He takes a deep breath in an effort to head off the panic, and answers. “Yeah, you can ask. I…I don’t know how to say it.” He takes a moment to gather the right words, stirring his cereal. “It’s always you. Killing yourself.” He stumbles over his words as he tries to push the next sentence out over Baekhyun’s surprise. “And I think that’s why you being here helps? Because you’re right here so I know you’re not dead.”

Kai takes the chance to look up at Baekhyun and is surprised to see nothing but a quiet sadness on Baekhyun’s face. Baekhyun sighs and puts his yogurt down on the coffee table, sitting straighter. Kai sits straighter in response, biting his tongue in confusion as Baekhyun reaches out and puts his hand on Kai’s knee, leaning close enough to snuggle against his shoulder like he likes to do during serious conversations.

“Kai,” he says, and Kai’s not sure he’s ever heard Baekhyun so sad and so serious, “I’m not sure how to say this, either.” He squeezes Kai’s leg as he swallows, and continues. “But I guess you already know this, anyway, so I shouldn’t be so worried about telling you, I mean –“

“Baekhyun? What is it?”

“I’m already dead, Kai.”

“No,” Kai tries for, but it comes out a little more like a whistling gasp as the air leaves his lungs. Everything drops a dark shade of grey and he’s pretty sure he’s hyperventilating.

Baekhyun tries to squeeze his leg, but he can’t feel it. “Kai. Kai. I killed myself a long time ago. I’m already dead.”

“No. But you’re right here. Baekhyun. Baekhyun. Baek-“ The hyperventilating catches up with Kai and everything goes deep, deep black.

Kai comes to in a world that is so much darker and so much colder than the one he has just left. There’s an incessant vibrating next to his head and he’s splayed out on the floor of his bedroom. He can hear Kongju scratching at the door and just wishes all of the noise would stop.

When it doesn’t, he groans and sits himself up, a pounding headache immediately starting from the rush of blood out of his head. With a few choice words, he gives in to the vibrating of his phone and picks up, not even bothering to check caller ID.

It’s Suho, with a happy, fast tone to his voice and Kai honestly doesn’t hear a word he says while he starts to find himself back. There’s only two things that Kai knows at the moment: that Baekhyun is dead, and that there’s blood dried on Kai’s face. It’s obviously something that’s not sustainable. He huffs as he figures out what he should do. Asking for help was never his strong suit, but still – “Suho?” he interjects at the first pause, “Can I stay with you for a while?”

Suho is understandably surprised on the other end. “Sure. Your apartment getting fumigated or something?”

“Uhmm, no. I just don’t think I can be here alone right now. Baekhyun.” And he hopes that’s enough.

“Yeah,” Suho replies, and his voice is soft and Kai’s wondering what he’s thinking about. “As long as you need.”

When Kai hangs up, he sees the date on his phone. 12 April. It’s been a year.


End file.
